Swaps – Photographs from the David Hurn collections runs from 30 September 2017 to 11 March 2018 at the National Museum Cardiff

All you’ve got is a box with a hole at the front. That’s what we’ve all got and that’s all we’ve ever had since photography was invented.

“All that happens is the image of life out there goes whizzing through that lens and goes bang onto some material or other and you get a trace of that life on the back of the box. And you’ve got once chance at it, unlike painting or writing you can’t go back and edit, in photography the moment’s gone and will never happen again.

“So, all we have is this box with a hole in the front. So how come if there was a sheep dog trial for instance and Cartier-Bresson, McCullin and Bruce Davidson were there, they are all photographing exactly the same thing but if you showed me 10 pictures from that event I would be able to tell you who had taken what picture?

“It’s the signature of someone which can’t be contrived; it’s the purest thing to their real personality, the world seen through their eyes. The pictures are stamped with the unique style of the individual who shot them.

“But what is necessary for the authorship to come through is an impeccable command of the technical side. The best photographers might say ‘Oh, the technical side is unimportant’. Well, the technical side is staggeringly important but it has got to the point with them that they don’t have to think about it. That only comes through hard work and incessant practice.

“I always stress this point… you’re not a photographer because you are interested in photography.

“The picture is out there, you don’t make the picture, you just have a good visual eye and press the button at the right time. For that you must have an intense curiosity and tenacity, not just a passing visual interest, in the theme of the pictures. This curiosity leads to intense examination, reading, talking, research and many, many failed attempts.

“The idea that there’s no future in taking pictures is nonsensical. If you go to Smiths in Paddington station there’s 3,000 magazines for sale and they’ve all got pictures in them, they’re on websites.

“Everybody’s floundering a little bit as to how to make any money from it but those sorts of problems will be solved, clever people will find ways. Pictures are going to be needed there and the skills are still going to be the same.”

It is a measure of the force of the medium of photography that a picture that probably took a 60th of a second to shoot continues to fuel the life of another man 62 years on.

Together with Avedon, Penn, Steichen, Strand, Arbus, Cartier-Bresson, Albert Watson and a few more, he is one of the truly great photographers. For me. They are all different and perhaps I should not compare them. So I don´t. Read the article from The Guardian, by Sean O `Hagan.

See the images and imagine the sound that he recorded. 😊 Pelle

Smith took many famous pictures, but also taped hours of audio of jazz greats, writers and artists of the day in his New York loft. A new book explores his strange world

Smith was perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay. His visual narratives, usually published in Life magazine, were often brutally atmospheric. He evoked the horrors of the second world war in the Pacific, where he was injured by mortar fire, and chronicled the working life of Dr Ernest Ceriani in the small town of Kremmling, Colorado, in his 1948 series, Country Doctor, now recognised as the first extended editorial photo story.

In 1955, Smith became a member of the Magnum picture agency, travelling to Pittsburgh for his first assignment, which entailed producing 100 photographs in three weeks to mark the city’s first centenary. He worked on the project for three years, producing around 21,000 photographs. Today, his legacy is maintained by the W Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, which celebrates and encourages the kind of humanistic photography he pioneered, if not the impossible tasks he set himself and his beleaguered editors.

A US soldier during the final days of fighting to gain control of the island of Saipan from occupying Japanese forces during the second world war. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Life/GettySmoke pours from the chimneys of an Ohio steel mill in a 1949 picture for Life magazine. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Life/GettyCountry doctor Ernest Ceriani photographed after having performed a caesarean section during which both baby and mother died due to complications. The picture, taken in Kremmling, Colorado, was part of Smith’s groundbreaking photo essay for Life magazine in 1948. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Life/Getty

They do, and once again I wish I had all the time in the world just going around enjoying exhibitions. Together with Avedon and Albert Watson he is one of my absolute favorite photographers. Over the years I have got so much inspiration from his work. The frozen fruits, cigarette butts, flowers, the backdrops and SO MUCH more. Recently we have been fortunate here in Stockholm to see his work at Åmells. What more could a photographer my age ask for? 😊 Pelle

Penn’s use of sharp, angled corners in his sets fit the narrow frame of his subject in the portrait “Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1948.” Credit Irving Penn Foundation, Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Irving Penn: Centennial,” spanning decades of the photographer’s work, opens on Monday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit Irving Penn Foundation, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Alex Wroblewski for The New York Time

Once a photographer, always a photographer. You don´t have a career for 50 years if you´re not a photographer by heart. A great title for the book. 😊 Pelle

He was best known for his Pulitzer prize-winning photo, Saigon Execution, but Eddie Adams won over 500 awards for his work, throughout a 50-year career. Starting as a photographer in the marines, he covered war zones, refugees, riots and celebrities. Eddie Adams: Bigger Than The Frame is published by the University of Texas Press.

When I go to a horse race to photograph I make no promises. Not to me or anyone else. No promises that my images should be sharp, show what horse or jockey, or anything. I go there with total freedom for creating and I don´t listen to nobody. Surprise me! That is all that I say to myself. Because of that I don´t really know until afterwards in the studio what I brought back. Is it useful and did I surprise myself. Do I like it? At the bottom I have included two of my friends and colleagues. Wolfram and Elina.See you on Sunday again.

Only two images are cropped…

This is a small selection from yesterdays 979 exposures. The one at the top is my favorite.